Dennis Hackethal’s Blog
My blog about philosophy, coding, and anything else that interests me.
Tweets
An archive of my tweets and retweets through . They may be formatted slightly differently than on Twitter. API access has since gotten prohibitively expensive – I don't know whether or when I'll be able to update this archive.
But in case I will, you can subscribe via RSS – without a Twitter account. Rationale
If you just view it as a tradition to be continued, without regard for your preferences, both you and your kids are going to be dealing with a very difficult situation. It's not at all unlikely that you're going to resent each other.
It's perfectly okay not to want kids.
Some good arguments for why having kids isn't for everyone:
I don't agree with all of them, but some are good. For example, having kids isn't "just what you do":
Closing web browser windows doesn't close connections: lapcatsoftware.com/articles/closi…
RT @coffeebreak_YT:
game over for the biggest fraudster of our generation. pic.twitter.com/z9X1ag2Ldb
RT @AJamesMcCarthy:
I took a photo of the "Bubble Nebula", a mass of dust and gas in space shaped by stellar winds by a hot star in the mid…
RT @libertyrecap:
"It is states that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people and immeasurable destruction in the 2…
Here are my top five git commands: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/handy-gi…
RT @paulg:
I used to think <person> was smart. Then I discovered that he disagrees with me about <political issue>, and I realized he could…
RT @AJamesMcCarthy:
I spent the morning freezing my butt off on the side of the road to get a shot of this: That’s the International Space…
RT @HoppeQuotes:
"State employees and dependents pay no taxes at all. Rather, their entire net-income (after payment of their head tax) com…
I think this is more or less how humans do it. They ask ‘Is the last digit one of 2,4,6,8,0?’
Kinda looks like the door opens before the bullet hits it?
Help: My Kid Doesn’t Want to Be Vegan Anymore! blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/help-my-…
Had they made "a reasonable effort to be truthful", and merely failed, they would have just been incompetent. From what I know, they did not, so they were lying.
From elliottemple.com/essays/lying (emphases modified):
A lie is a communication [...] which you should know is false.
'Experts' and politicians should have known that they were advocating something they didn't fully understand and that viruses don't work that way.
RT @PR0GRAMMERHUM0R:
How it feels learning to code reddit.com/r/programmerhu… pic.twitter.com/GCuQZ71X0p
RT @NickTaber:
The qualities that get kids in trouble in school are often their greatest gifts. Sad.
Unless weirdly, that universal/digital DNA coded for non-universal/analog processing units or brains in some organisms — but that would still make error correction in programming those processing units so much harder. Any digital equivalent would have an evolutionary advantage.
We also know from Leonard Adleman’s computer made from DNA that DNA is computationally universal. Due to the lack in error correction, analog computation cannot be universal, so I don’t see how any organism based on DNA would ever employ analog computation.
Those categories aren’t mutually exclusive and I suspect most biological computation is digital (as opposed to analog). Correcting errors in analog computation is much harder (impossible?), as David Deutsch has explained, and that would put a serious damper on any analog organism
Not a math wiz and I have a feeling what you’re saying is related to the shortcomings/contradictions of ‘naive’ set theory, so you’re probably right, but: a single-element set for each integer gives us an actual infinity of sets, no?
RT @elonmusk:
Under pressure from hundreds of activist employees, Twitter deplatforms Trump, a sitting US President, even though they thems…
In Germany they’re called chancellors not prime ministers.
RT @TCSparents:
After many attempts, this is ChatGPT's attempt at a Taking Children Seriously related sonnet: pic.twitter.com/SlAut7POhQ
Yes, Elon cares greatly about pissing you off, personally.
RT @elonmusk:
@StationCDRKelly
I strongly disagree. Forcing your pronouns upon others when they didn’t ask, and implicitly ostracizing thos…
Then presumably you understand how your work on ‘alignment’, when applied to AGI, is morally reprehensible?
hi, i run openai. up for a chat with me about this? (also, your books have inspired me more than anyone else’s,…
@IanMcMilan @lassekoivisto @sama
Google “the beginning of Infinity”
RT @SpaceX:
Falcon 9 launches @ispace_inc's HAKUTO-R mission to the Moon, first stage booster returns to Earth pic.twitter.com/cTnTRxzdU2
RT @AlexEpstein:
Today's environmental movement "is not about a clean environment for us or for us to be able to contemplate polar bears or…
RT @AJamesMcCarthy:
This one time I teamed up with my friend @MatherneConnor to take the most ridiculously detailed moon photo we possibly…
You may want to look into payment processor @Square. They show a pattern of lying to users about how long they withhold money. I've been documenting their shady practices here: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/don-t-us…
Just so ppl know, that employees can read your messages should be your default assumption for any website, app, or service, unless it specifically advertises e2e encryption, and even then you should be skeptical. twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/s…
RT @NickTaber:
This is the logic of so many “progressive” parents: “You can make your own decisions, but if you make the wrong ones, we’ll…
RT @hodgetwins:
.@Jack lied to everyone. pic.twitter.com/Kua46IgCu2
RT @MarinaMedvin:
BTW Twitter employees can see your DMs pic.twitter.com/s8jWOW2rh7
I reported this tweet for celebrating violence but Twitter said it's doing no such thing. Is it because it's celebrating violence against the right (no pun intended) people?
RT @bariweiss:
THREAD: THE TWITTER FILES PART TWO.
TWITTER’S SECRET BLACKLISTS.
RT @bariweiss:
6. Twitter denied that it does such things. In 2018, Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon…
RT @TCSparents:
If your child has no real choice but to “cooperate”, you are not “eliciting cooperation” you are enforcing obedience.
RT @TCSparents:
“Requests” that the person is not free to decline are not requests, they are orders.
RT @AJamesMcCarthy:
This is the moment Mars peeked out from behind our moon after being hidden for an hour. This shot was captured using my…
"accoutrements" islamicat is being v fancy today
Nein, es wuerde nicht gleich ausgesprochen, da das f im Englischen 'hart' und das v 'weich' ausgesprochen werden. So klingt ein 'v' wie das 'W' in 'Wetter'. Da Deutsche die Konsonanten aber generell haerter aussprechen, faellt das nicht auf und die Werbung funktioniert.
Don't get me wrong, ChatGPT is impressive and def better at continuity than laughably bad 'AIs' such as Siri, but the bottleneck really seems to be genuine understanding.
ChatGPT is not as good at continuity as people seem to think it is:
Me: x is 4
GPT: In this context, x is equal to 4. [...]
Me: what's the value of x
GPT: The value of x is not known [...] as you have not provided any information about x. [...]
Had the war never happened, Zelensky would have continued to be a fringe politician no one cares about.
He has profited enormously from the war, both through PR campaigns favoring him (incl. silly things such as Sean Penn giving Zelenksy his Oscar), and also financially. twitter.com/FinancialTimes…
Ach ja, die weltbekannte jugoslawische Qualitätsarbeit
This is where 'following the science' gets you. twitter.com/WallStreetSilv…
RT @SJobs_Stories:
"Steve showed no sign of disappointment in my reply. He didn't know the word 'no'. It never meant anything to him. No is…
RT @appltrack:
Tim Cook is asked about the recent factory unrest and protests in China 😳🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/tHdb5AxXqZ
Had very similar thoughts this morning. twitter.com/joshavant/stat…
Ungenutzte Cover-Ideen für Der Anfang der Unendlichkeit: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/ungenutz…
It is really easy to get it to make mistakes.
It’s impressive. But not THAT big a deal. Not yet. twitter.com/boyanslat/stat…
Yes but I wish you’d stop basing important decisions on popularity contests. Use moral principles.
"EU commissioner threatens Elon Musk with Twitter shutdown in Europe"
Let him. Then the people of the EU will either use VPNs or turn on the commissioner, or both. twitter.com/welt/status/15…
How to Delete All User-Defined Routines in PostgreSQL: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/how-to-d…
There was a change .org petition to end this shady practice:
Many small business owners are fighting for survival and cannot afford for this to happen.
RT @dchackethal:
@RanaTine @Square
Did you know that Square made surviving covid policies difficult, particularly for small businesses, by…
Did you know that Square made surviving covid policies difficult, particularly for small businesses, by withholding more of their money in response to the pandemic?
You can ask ChatGPT legal questions.
Take note, @Square.
blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/don-t-us… pic.twitter.com/8hG67R5eT6
RT @elonmusk:
@micsolana
If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?
RT @mtaibbi:
36.Twitter files continued:
"THE FIRST AMENDMENT ISN’T ABSOLUTE”
Szabo’s letter contains chilling passages relaying Democrat…
RT @mtaibbi:
29. A fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about s…
RT @mtaibbi:
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine. One executive would write to another: “More to revi…
RT @TheVastReaches:
I took this photograph of the 2017 total solar eclipse. I’ve been revisiting it ever since and pushing it to the absol…
RT @AJamesMcCarthy:
Mars is at it's closest to Earth. Here's a photo I captured of it last night using a 14" telescope. You can clearly see…
Why I Mirror My Tweets – and Why You Should, Too: blog.dennishackethal.com/posts/why-i-mi…
@EweDaddy @angela4LNCChair @MAJTOURE
[T]he state gets money back for every dollar a parent has to pay in support.
How?
This document acf.hhs.gov/archive/css/po… says "The IV-A agency is also required to pay to the Federal government its share of collections made." but who can read all the surrounding legalese.
@EweDaddy @angela4LNCChair @MAJTOURE
You’re saying feds collect child support? Aren’t the checks made out to the mother directly?
RT @PelosiTracker_:
BREAKING🚨:
SBF used a loophole in the Citizens United rule to donate $37M of "dark money" to Republicans
"I donated…
This thread reads like a thriller: twitter.com/samwcyo/status…
The number of spam responses on this thread is on topic. Does Twitter not use some sort of proof of work to guard against spam?
Gold has proof of work, too – you need to dig it out of the ground – but it's harder to transfer than bitcoin. Verification is also comparatively hard for gold. And bitcoin is already easy to transfer so there's no need for paper and the slippery slope to fiat.
I know little about bitcoin but it seems to me that a decisive advantage it has over fiat is that it has proof of work – which fiat doesn't have by definition because you can create it out of thin air.
Interesting article by @chidiwilliams__ on a concept called 'proof of work'.
Was originally designed to help guard against spam, then borrowed to protect the blockchain against tampering.
chidiwilliams.com/post/proof-of-…
Glad I’ve never set foot in this disgusting country. twitter.com/unusual_whales…
RT @TCSparents:
“When a parent disapproves of their child’s emotion or dismisses it, the child [...] learns that it’s wrong to feel the way…
RT @WholeMarsBlog:
Apple has released a software update limiting the use of AirDrop in China in light of recent protests.
AirDrop was bei…
RT @PR0GRAMMERHUM0R:
What is this Gooey you speak of? reddit.com/r/programmerhu… pic.twitter.com/h6y6VElxih
RT @mizroba:
very nice observation by orwell:
‘Why is the goose-step not used in England? There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officer…
A brief scroll through Cook’s timeline reveals that he tweets like a wet sock. Takes no risks. Tweets nothing controversial. (Pro lgbt, pro trans, pro veterans, anti climate change, etc.) @elonmusk, on the other hand, whether you agree or disagree, is a breath of fresh air. twitter.com/tim_cook/statu…
If it is indeed true that Musk is defending free speech while other tech giants are thwarting it, enemies of capitalism should note that it is a private entrepreneur who’s defending it, not the government.